The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit, public interest law firm providing free and affordable legal services to communities facing threats to their local environment, local agriculture, the local economy, and quality of life. Our mission is to build sustainable communities by assisting people to assert their right to local self-government and the rights of nature.

Established in 1995, CELDF has now become the principal advisor to community groups and municipal governments determined to transition from merely regulating corporate harms to stopping those harms by asserting local, democratic control directly over corporations.

Through grassroots organizing, public education and outreach, legal assistance, and drafting of ordinances, nearly 200 municipalities in ten states have adopted CELDF-drafted Community Bills of Rights laws. These laws address activities such as shale gas drilling and fracking, corporate water withdrawals, longwall coal mining, factory farming, the land application of sewage sludge, and uranium mining.

This website is provided for educational purposes only. The materials within
are not intended as legal advice, should not be deemed to be the offering of
legal services, and are not presented as advocacy in support of, or
opposition to, particular legislation.